


Vessel

by Morbane



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Crossover, Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 14:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12256017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: Galen has been forced to serve the Empire, but the Empire has been twisted into the service of an older and darker power. There is bleak comfort, here, in the idea that there is always a bigger fish - and there is also a way forward.





	Vessel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



A vein of superstition ran through the rational, optimised Empire.

When Galen Erso had worn Imperial uniform willingly, it had been something to acknowledge and disregard. Religion, among the peoples of the Empire, was tolerated, although religious conflict that threatened its stability and prosperity was not. And whatever the values they marched under, a people were just that, _people_ , a collection of parts that never quite yielded the same sum.

But it was harder, now, to tolerate Imperial hypocrisy, and if he allowed himself to think about the difference between Imperial preaching and Imperial practice, it grew from an irritation to something like despair.

The weapon, for example.

It had passed through many names by now. First euphemisms: Celestial Power, Enlightenment; then simpler terms that brought it into focus. Each uglier than the last. Although in conversation 'Death Star' was now frequent, Galen had begun to hear something that he liked even less: _Godkiller_.

According to the official media releases, their beliefs made the Kthon, the Semorenga, the Jedi, and other enemies of the Empire imperfect, primitive, reactionary: clinging to irrational traditions predisposed such cultures to resist the Empire out of baseline, baseless sentiment. It was anti-Imperial to hold such beliefs, the argument ran. The people in question might even have agreed with that statement, proud to be anti-Imperial - but Galen thought the truth was otherwise. Those religions were deemed anti-Imperial because the Empire had declared the people so.

In the early days after Lah'mu, he had wondered if the use of kyber crystals for the great weapon was motivated by more by the expedience of politics than by engineering requirements. There were other energy sources - few that were as well-proven, but many that promised more. But there were no other energy sources that had religious significance to dissident pilgrims, and to the Jedi. None that would crush spirits before the completed weapon finished the job.

He could not ignore that possible pettiness, because Lyra was freshly dead. She had not been buried with her pendant of kyber, but she had rarely been separated from it in life.

It had been a very private thing for her, a tradition in her family that stretched back further in time and space than she could tell him. The pendants, worn by women, were the symbol of a goddess, a goddess neither quite visible nor vanished but transient, flickering in and out of galactic history like a ship constantly entering and exiting hyperdrive. Or so it was said, clearly (to Galen) to explain the goddess's absence in time of need. Such as when her temples were ransacked and her treasure taken.

He had never voiced his theory, about the reason for the use of kyber, although he had considered ways to use this theory to needle his captor. He had imagined asking: was the project meant as a power play, or was it meant to _work_? Was the Death Star built to serve the Empire, or would only the means of its building do that? 

The temptation was low. He indulged himself very rarely in such conversations with Krennic. From his position of power, Krennic (a closer enemy than ever he had been a friend) gloated over every such gambit merely because Galen had attempted it.

* * *

The time came when he pitied Krennic.

Krennic was a true believer: in his own superiority, of course, and in the endurance of the Empire; and also in the pragmatic purity of its intentions. Order would be imposed through force, but then it would _be_ order, and that was all that mattered.

Krennic believed in a weapon of war so devastating it would fire a shot and prevent five thousand. He believed in numbers and risk and reward.

That the Death Star would kill billions was considered incidental to the rebellions that would cease. But that it would obliterate resistance before resistance began was incidental to its true purpose, which was not a human purpose at all.

And Krennic had no idea.

It had begun with the kyber crystals, a problem Galen returned and returned to, one he could not quite bury with Lyra: _and if they had instead harvested the heavy sugars of Gardos III? Or if they had harnessed the sublimation reaction of metherene? How would the reactor core have needed to be designed then?_

But when he pondered this, the thoughts that had been vital and bright turned to glue with the turn of topic. When he considered the weapon according to the plans that had been laid out,, his head was clear; when he pondered what-ifs and deviations, he felt the light go out.

It was not exhaustion or apathy or stress. it was not the difficulty of the concepts with which he toyed. He prided himself on being a person who knew his own mind, and regulated his own habits. It was not by chance that this occurred.

He would have assumed conditioning; he would have assumed that he had been broken under Krennic's relentless normalization of atrocity, had it not been for the figure who appeared like a flicker in his vision, once, in an otherwise empty room; had it not been for a soft voice encouraging him, in words without breaths.

He investigated all the prosaic causes first, of course. He ensured that his habits were broken, his diet changed, his sleep and work stations moved. Krennic was amiable to all of this, treating his head scientist like a pet that had gone off its food and refused to sing. 

Drugs were the next way - sanctioned and unsanctioned, but all available in a vast facility that spanned species and classes and occupations, military and non-military.

Krennic was growing irritated with him by the time he gave up; and he _had_ given up on this line of inquiry when he saw the figure again.

He recognized the figure immediately, and yet he could not have described the presence in any way except by saying that the figure was male and human, as Galen was. It seemed necessary that such a figure should have a face, but either Galen could not fathom it, or could not remember it once the man had disappeared again. He viewed the man, if he viewed him at all, through the lens of a dream.

This time, the figure was not speaking to Galen, but whispering into the ear of a man across the table from Galen at a strategic meeting. When a lull fell, the man spoke up, clearly and decisively, and the engineers around the table agreed easily.

Belatedly, he realized that he experienced the seeming hallucination not when work was going poorly, but when it was going well.

He pursued kyber crystal refinement more diligently, and meanwhile, made discreet enquiries about others' experience of this haunting. He began to pay attention to superstitions.

As Galen followed the trail of superstitions, he followed more keenly the progress of the messages that travelled, several times per cycle, between his new base Eadu and Scarif. On the outward journey, he sent plans and specifications. The inward journey brought him research into Lyra's goddess.

Her name was Wonder Woman, and she had had an enemy. She still _had_ an enemy, no more dead than she.

The name of _Godkiller_ was no coincidence, but a fragment, a trace of a transcendental thought. Nor was Galen the architect of this device he had believed his own invention - that, truly, was Ares, God of War.

When Galen had returned to the Empire, he had justified his collaboration with the hope that he was replaceable, yet unique. He had believed that the Death Star would be completed whether or not he contributed. The revelation of Ares' part was a confirmation that Galen had not expected to receive.

And he realized, then, that as well as reaching completion, the weapon would be used. How and when, he did not know, but it was the whim of a god that it would be, not human pride or pragmatism. The latter could be manipulated, but the former only appeased.

But Ares did not contend with men alone.

He laid his hopes in two women he could only imagine: one who wore a kyber pendant, and one in whose honour it was worn.

_Jyn, the weapon I was tasked to create was meant for gods, not men._

_Make sure the right one wields it._


End file.
